


Prodigies

by TheFalconWarrior



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Robin (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: AU, Gen, tags to be added as story progresses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:48:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21958387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheFalconWarrior/pseuds/TheFalconWarrior
Summary: Dick Grayson’s parents loved him, but his world crumbled to ashes around him after they fell.Timothy Drake’s parents didn’t love him, but they needed an heir and quiet, genius Timothy was perfect for their goals.Jason Todd isn’t sure what his parents felt about him, and he’s sure as hell he's nobody special, but when fate sends him crashing into two characters straight out of a fairytale, he decides to see how this story goes.
Relationships: Catherine Todd & Jason Todd, Dick Grayson & John Grayson & Mary Grayson
Comments: 35
Kudos: 112





	1. Richard John Grayson

**Author's Note:**

> My first--long fic? Chapter story? Whatever it is. But. Yay!  
> (Am I gonna end up regretting this...)

Richard John Grayson comes into the world on the first day of spring. A nurse puts the baby in Mary Grayson’s arms, and as the mother looks tiredly down at the little life she’d been carrying all these months, he seems to gaze back up at her, through newborn grey eyes, already wriggling within the blankets. 

“Can’t stay still, can you, my little Robin?” she whispers, and her husband, standing behind her and leaning over her shoulder, laughs and squeezes her shoulders. 

“He’ll be a quick one,” John beams, and Mary sends him a playful glare. 

“Stop trying to sound like a wise old lady, John, it’s not working.” 

He chuckles and kisses the top of her hair, and Mary smiles down at her baby again. 

They’re a family now. The three of them. 

(Well, six, if she counts Rick and Karla and Johnny. 

She should, she knows, but sue her, she’s new to the family, give her time.) 

She can’t wait to see where this goes. 

John is right. Little Dickie _is_ a quick one. 

He’s toddling around on quick feet by the time he’s eight months old. Chattering nonstop by the time he’s a year old. 

It’s around this time that Mary begins to understand all the worries of motherhood. 

Circuses aren’t exactly as popular as they once were, nowadays. Haly’s International goes way back; a hundred years ago, they were traveling all over Europe and Asia in one long, colorful caravan. 

Today, they have a caravan of trailers, mobile homes and vans parking in lots while the old-fashioned tents are set up in a nearby field. Or lot. There’re plane rides involved, and online advertising that Mary has found she has a surprising knack for. 

But in the end, Haly’s isn’t doing quite _as_ well as they’d all like. Haly takes what acts he can get. They’re a mismatched hod-podge of performers from all over the whole world. 

Naturally, there’s people to stay away from. It’s inevitable. 

Mary keeps a sharp eye on her Robin. She employs anyone she can to do the same. 

It’s just her and Dickie, today. Karla, Rick, and Johnny are out on the town, and John is helping Alex fix up some of the equipment for the strongmen’s act. 

She’s hanging out laundry outside their trailer. They’re parked near the edge of the lot, and she’s stretched a rope between one window and a handy tree. Dickie is playing a few feet away. She’d given him a crust of bread and he’s tossing around crumbs, laughing as robins and sparrows hop about the asphalt, pecking away at crumbs whenever the little boy isn’t turned their way. 

They seem to have caught on to the fact that he tends to chase the birds he can see. 

“Aw, you make some friends Dickiebird?” Mary turns from her laundry. Maya, the knife-thrower’s daughter, is crouched down next to Dickie, who is laughing and babbling nonsense, although Maya smiles and listens attentively, taking the chunk of bread he offers and laughing as she tosses crumbs, before ruffling the boy’s hair and standing up, heading towards Mary. 

“He’s _so adorable_ ,” she gushes, grabbing one edge of the sheet in Mary’s hand and reaching up to help her drape it over the line. 

Mary laughs in response. 

(And then there’s the people who have been with the circus for generations. John and Rick’s family, the Graysons; Maya’s family the Faruqs; Old Lady Jeanna’s people; the Wheelers who specialize in the art of escape. Those people? They’re _family_.) 

By the time Dickie’s two, he’s hanging off any possible surface, still or otherwise, and climbing into the highest, most precarious places he can find. (So far, this includes door knobs, people, trees, rooftops, tents--) 

It’s a nerve-wracking year for the young parents. 

“He was right here,” John swears, panic leaking into his voice. 

Karla is still hunting for the little boy inside the trailers. Johnny and Rick are on the other side of their trailers. 

“Oy, John, Mary!” 

Mary swivels around. Harry is waving from behind the lion cage. 

“You missing a baby?” 

Zitka the elephant is outside her cage, standing in a patch of grass. She has her trunk lifted up near her face. 

Her little robin is straddling the trunk about halfway up. 

“ _Dickie_?” Mary (screeches), and John’s jaw drops and he shakes his head. 

Harry chuckles. “S all right, Zitka’s a mama herself and gentle as they come.” He walks over to the elephant, whistles, and makes a gesture. “C’mon now, Zitka, let’s get the little one back to his Mama.” 

Mary shakes her head and trots over to join him, kicking John’s ankle as she passes. Her husband shakes himself and follows. 

Dickie laughs as Zitka tilts her trunk, sliding down and into Mary’s arms. 

He cheers. “Again!” 

“Dickie, _no.”_

“Three is old enough,” Mary says. “Right?” 

“John and I were four,” Rick offers. “So was Johnny.” 

“He’s been climbing the ladders for a year now,” John points out. “It’s probably _safer_ to start teaching him now.” 

In more ways than one, Mary doesn’t say. 

How _anybody_ can have so much _endless energy_ is beyond her. 

They start small, of course. 

Gymnastics and floor acrobatics. Here, Rick, Karla, and John all jump in enthusiastically. Even Johnny joins in, whenever he’s allowed, although Karla has banned the boy from trying to teach Dickie any new tricks without adult supervision after an incident with a clothesline. 

Mary teaches him to dance. 

The others don’t dance. It’s childish, but she’s still proud of it. 

Dickie catches on quickly. 

“ _Dickie_.” Dickie grins at her before sliding down Zitka’s trunk. 

“Was tellin’ a story,” he tells Mary, and she sighs and nods. 

“That’s wonderful, Dickie, but it’s time to wash up for dinner now.” 

Dickie shouts a goodbye to Zitka and Harry before lifting his arms to be carried. Mary swings him up onto her hip. 

“Mama, we visit Ronnie?” 

Mary frowns. “Ronnie?” 

Dick nods enthusiastically. “Ronnie! He has blueberry bush. But Zitka say no. And Mama and Tati says ask first.” 

Something curls in her stomach, but Mary just hums. “I’m glad you remembered to ask first, Dickie.” She’s struggling to breathe now and she really has no idea what to say to her three-year-old. She doesn’t want to scare him. Should she be scaring him? 

_Calm down._

“Do we know a Ronnie?” she whispers to John ten minutes later. They’re in the little kitchen. Behind them, Karla is trying to convince Dickie he doesn’t need to feed himself and Johnny is laughing. 

John frowns. “Ronnie?” 

Mary had been rather proud of her composure once she’d reached their trailer, but now her heart is pounding again. “Dickie said someone called ‘Ronnie’ wanted to go to a blueberry bush.” 

John grabs her elbows. “Hey, Mary, calm down. Maybe it was just an invisible friend?” 

Mary shoots him a withering look. 

“Everything alright there?” Rick calls. Mary turns. Both he and Karla are watching her, concern clear on their faces. Johnny glances between them all, catching the sudden tension. 

“Apparently Dickie met someone at the animal cages. A Ronnie?” 

Karla frowns. “Haly hasn’t had any new hires recently, has he?” 

“Maybe Dickie got a name wrong,” Rick shrugs. 

“Or some random guy snuck into the circus,” John offers. Winces. “He was with Zitka? I’ll talk to Harry.” 

Mary nods. There’s little else they can do; she turns back to her baby and quietly reprimands him for the peas he’s squashing into the table. 

Harry is bewildered when they ask him about the incident. “I was ‘ere the whole time, John. Wouldn’ leave the li’l one alone, even with Zitka. Nobody came in.” 

“I see,” John said, neutrally. 

“Dickie’s probably just tellin’ tales. Makin’ imaginary friends, eh?” 

Rick laughs. John joins in placatingly and glances at Mary and shrugs, and is completely bewildered when she scowls and stomps on his foot before marching back to the trailer. 

She keeps Dickie close. To _herself_. Watches as he runs around outside with Johnny as Karla hangs up laundry. Takes him with her when she and John go out to town. (“Mary, it’s almost midnight, he’ll be fine in the trailer with Rick and Karla...”) Panics every time she loses sight of him, only to find him hanging from a tree or sitting in a bush three feet away. 

She makes a deal with Dickie. (Three-year-olds don’t quite understand deals, but Mary hopes it’ll sink in, somehow.) If he wanders off, there’s no training. Training is one of the most fun times Dickie has where he doesn’t get in trouble for it. He starts to get the gist of the idea after Mary cancels training twice. 

John watches, but says nothing. Mary knows he thinks she’s paranoid. 

Rick and Karla watch, and say nothing. Sometimes Karla opens her mouth, then shuts it without saying anything. 

She can imagine what they’re thinking. She doesn’t care. 

But she’s glad John doesn’t bring it up, because she can and will fight him on it. 

The sense of unease only lessens when they finally move on. But it will never truly leave her. 

Dick is four when he starts begging to be allowed on the trapeze. 

Mary wishes there were a manual for this thing, briefly wonders if maybe there is. 

(Do Rick and Karla and Johnny count as a manual?) 

“One more year,” she tells him. “Just wait one more year, little Robin.” 

Dickie whoops and cartwheels away to tell Johnny he gets to go on the trapeze. Mary watches him go with an amused smile, wondering if he actually knows how long a year is. 

(He doesn’t, it turns out. Mary loses count of how many more times he asks, but she’s made up her mind and puts her foot down. Five years old, not a day before. But she spends the rest of the year working up to the moment. 

“You’re just as excited as Dickie,” John laughs, and Mary swats him with a towel. 

“Quiet, you,” but her grin overpowers the forced scowl. “Aren’t you?” she laughs, finally, as John comically darts away from the towel.) 

They take him up to the trapeze on his fifth birthday. 

They’ve been planning this moment for a year. Johnny spends the whole journey to the tent where they have the rig set up telling Dickie how _amazing_ it will be, but obediently steps to the side with his parents when they reach the tent. 

John walks Dickie through everything safety; they check lines and equipment together, John talks him through everything they’ve learned about falling. 

But Mary gets first honors. 

She lets Dickie up the ladder first. Once they’re both up on the platform, she grabs the trapeze. 

Dickie is bouncing on his feet as he puts his small, chalky hands beside hers. 

“Calm down, sweetheart,” Mary laughs, but inside her heart is jumping with what’s likely as much excitement as Dickie’s. 

She can _finally_ share the air with her baby. 

(“The first flight is the best,” Karla had told her, and Mary thinks she can agree.) 

After that first day, Dickie has fallen in love. 

He takes to the trapeze like a duck in water. Mary isn’t surprised. Flying is in his blood. Rick and John’s blood, Grayson blood, _Flying_ Grayson blood. 

(She likes to think it’s in her blood, too. She may not be an acrobat born-and-raised, but she likes to think that a kind of freedom runs through her veins, too.) 

Dick is six when he does his first quadruple summersault off the trapeze. 

Mary catches him, swings them back to the platform. 

“I did it, Mami!” Dick screams in her ear, and Mary winces a little and hushes him before she laughs. 

“Yes, you did, Robin!” She hugs him tightly. “Good job, Dickie,” she whispers into his hair. “I’m so proud of you.” 

As they’re heading down, John whoops and scoops Dickie off the third rung of the ladder. 

Rick joins him to ruffle Dickie’s hair, and Johnny is jumping up and down shouting something. 

Mary climbs the rest of the way down, smiling as John spins Dickie through the air, elated laughter filling the air. 

Karla puts an arm around her shoulders and grins. “How you feeling, Mami?” 

Mary grins. “So, so proud.” 

Karla laughs and Mary laughs with her, but she can feel the hairs at the back of her neck standing on end. She glances around, suddenly uneasy, but the others are all laughing and slapping backs and Rick is ushering them all out, insisting they hit town for a celebratory dinner, and Mary lets herself be pulled away from the tent. 

She nearly jumps out of her skin when a shadow turns around the edge of the tent, but it’s just Harry, who is now being invited to come along. 

Karla squeezes her shoulder. “Don’t worry, Mary, he and Johnny will be using the net for years to come.” Mary has no idea what she’s talking about but nods along anyways, calling up a smile. 

It’s only when they’re all settled in some bright, crowded diner surrounded by noisy patrons and with greasy platters set out in front of them that she relaxes. A little. 

Dick is seven when they finish teaching him the Flying Grayson’s trademark routine. 

“So I can be part of the show now?” Dickie says, excited, bouncing on his toes. 

John ruffles his hair. “Not yet, Dickie.” 

Dickie stills just a moment, lips pushing into a pout. “But _Johnny_ gets to do it.” 

“Perks of being twice your age,” Johnny smirks. 

“Johnny,” Karla says, stern, and Johnny shrugs. 

“Soon, Robin,” Mary promises. And just like that, Dickie’s sunshine-smile is back. Mary laughs, kisses him on the cheek and shoos him off to play. 

Johnny takes the chance to escape his mother’s lecture and, despite his recent complaints that Dickie was _just a baby_ and his claims of having no time for his younger cousin, throws an arm around the younger boy and starts chattering in Roma. 

Mary rolls her eyes with a smile. She had grown up an only child, but she’s _heard_ about siblings, and watched Rick and John. 

She absentmindedly listens to the conversation as she starts the dishes. Thanks to the “international” bit of Haly’s circus, they all know at least twelve languages with varying levels of proficiency. 

Roma, though. They were all fluent in Roma. They all made sure that Dickie and Johnny knew the family language. Rick, Karla, John. 

And Mary. 

She’s half Romani herself, after all. Very distantly related to John himself. A fact that made old, now long-left behind friends wrinkle their noses and say _ew_ , but really, they’re not even that _closely_ related, and Mary just doesn’t care. She doesn’t. 

It’s how they met, though. Rick and John traveling fifteen miles to an old dusty English cottage to visit an ailing great-aunt, and being talked into staying a while with the old lady, her granddaughter’s husband and his daughter. 

A daughter who Aunty had shown old pictures, detailed grand stories of circus life and family and humans flying through the air. A daughter who had latched on to a dream of flying, herself—a dream her parents indulged, thinking she’d grow out of it one day (she never did.). 

Needless to say, the story went on to involve John and Rick finally leaving England minus one great-aunt, but secretly leaving plus one Flying Grayson. 

Something dark flashes past the window. Mary’s heart nearly stops. 

The cup she was rinsing clatters into the sink. 

Mary curses, checking through the dishes still in the sink to make sure she hasn’t broken anything. Thank God the cup was just plastic. 

“Everything okay, Mary?” Karla asks, setting down a newly-emptied dish. 

“Mm-hm,” Mary says, picking up the sponge again. Her eyes linger on Dickie and Johnny, whooping and laughing outside the trailer. 

She leans forward to open the window above the sink, sticks her head out. 

“Dickie, Johnny, it’s getting dark. Time to come back inside.” 

They're clearing everything up, and Johnny is telling Dickie how lucky he is his birthday is in spring and they can have picnic-parties. Karla is shooing John and Rick inside, telling them they’ll be taking first shift driving tomorrow so they better get some sleep because she won’t have them crashing the trailers, not on her watch. 

Mary tugs Dickie aside. “Tomorrow’s a big day, little Robin.” 

He blinks up at her, and then his eyes widen, catching on. 

“Oh, man,” Johnny says, popping up beside them. “First show?” 

Mary smiles wider, and just nods. 

Johnny whoops, grabs Dickie’s hands and spins him around. 

“Congrats, Dickie!” he yells, and Dickie is laughing, “Best birthday present _ever!“_

John and Rick have stopped on the trailer steps to watch, and Karla has her hands on her hips, a smile on her lips. “Watch the fire, Johnny.” 

Johnny swoops them further from the fire before letting go and ruffling Dickie’s hair. 

The younger boy immediately launches himself into Mary’s arms. He’s still small enough for Mary to scoop him up, his feet dangling halfway to her knees as his arms wrap around her neck. 

“Thank you, Mami. I’m gonna make you and Tati _proud_.” 

Everything about right now is perfect, Mary decides. Her husband, standing at the door of one trailer, his stance strong and smile bright. Her brother- and sister-in-law, watching her and Dickie with identical smiles. Sweet Johnny, even his _silhouette_ against the flickering flames betraying his excitement. 

The warmth of a spring day, the warmth of the fire, the warmth of her family around her. But most importantly the warmth of her little boy in her arms. 

Mary kisses his hair. “I know you will, Robin. I know you will.” 

A breeze picks up at that moment. Mary shivers at the sudden chill, hugging Dickie closer. 

Karla claps her hands, making everyone startle. “Well! _Bright and early_ , tomorrow, everybody. Let’s get moving.” 


	2. Jason Peter Todd

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Catherine hates to admit it, but over the first six years of Jason's life she wonders if she'd made the right decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup, early update. Just realized I'd posted on a Wednesday last time? So posting this early and switching update-day to Sunday.

Jason Peter Todd is born at Leslie Thompkin’s free clinic. 

... 

Dr. Thompkins never knows how to feel about these situations. They’re awkward at best and heartbreaking at worst, and there never seems to be a clear right answer. 

“Dr. Thompkins?” Leslie looks up from the bottle of formula to see one of her assistants wringing her hands. There’s a woman standing beside her. Petite, long brown hair in a messy ponytail, a stormy expression in her green eyes and small, tight frown. 

An enormous bruise spreading over her cheek. 

Leslie gives the other woman a quick go-over. She has her suspicions about where the bruise came from, but one of the policies that keep her patients coming is _we don’t ask questions_. The other is _we don’t snitch_. 

“Yes, Sarah?” Leslie says, hoping the question she’s asking is obvious. Sarah is a capable nurse, who actually works at Gotham Hospital and volunteers part-time at Leslie’s clinic. 

She knows how to handle bruises. 

Sarah wrings her hands. “She says she’s here about the baby.” 

Leslie slides her eyes to the woman--(and blanches, just a little. Maybe she’s just getting old...but she seems more girl than woman, to her). The younger woman meets her eyes stormily. 

“Catherine Todd,” she says, like that explains everything. “Willis jus’ told me bout the baby.” 

Leslie is a professional, and that’s why she can hide her wince. The bruise on Catherine’s face. The man who had rushed in with a screaming woman already in labor, and stormed out before the obviously premature baby had even come into the world. The woman who had stared with so much confusion and indecision across her face as she’d stared at the baby in her arms, before practically shoving him into Leslie’s arms. 

Catherine reaches up and presses a finger against the bruise, stormy look falling away to be replaced by a rather bashful one. “C’n I see him?” 

Leslie sets down the bottle, nodding at Sarah, who ducks her head and slips out behind Catherine. “I’m sorry. But you are...?” 

Catherine snorts. “His daddy's wife. Can I see the baby, Doctor?” 

“I’ll have to speak to the mother,” Leslie says, and Catherine huffs, tossing back the strands of hair hanging in her face. 

“Guess I can wait.” 

She’s standing with something of a smirk on her face when Leslie returns. 

(Did Leslie mention that she kind of hates these situations?) 

Admittedly, Catherine’s first instinct when Willis told her where he’d been was to start screaming. 

It didn’t end well. It never did. 

So while Willis stormed off to drink himself into a stupor, probably, Catherine marched off to the clinic. 

And now here she is, staring at a tiny baby wrapped up in a tiny blanket lying on a padded table. 

He’s so frickin tiny. 

Catherine can’t have kids. She knows this from painful experience. 

She don’t want a kid, anyways. Why would she want to bring something so...small...into this nasty world her kind populates? 

(This one’s already here, though.) 

Okay, she’s a little in love. 

And it’s not even her kid. She’s so _screwed_. 

“Can I hold him?” 

Dr. Thompkins purses her lips. 

_Oh, come on_. Catherine rolls her eyes. 

“I was under the impression _she_ didn’t want him. You want to go ask her again or somethin’?” 

Catherine’s always been good at reading people, can almost see Dr. Thompkins discomfort. 

Aw. For all the time she spends in the slums, she’s still such a poor, sweet old thing. 

“When can I take him home?” 

The doctor purses her lips. “There’s a legal process involved.” 

“Well, far as I know _she_ don’t want him.” 

Dr. Thompkins is a professional. But the bruise on Catherine’s cheek is so obviously at the corner of her vision. Catherine snorts again, waving a hand at her face. 

“That what you’re worried ‘bout, Doctor? Think he’s gonna find any better in foster care?” There’s something especially bitter in her voice, but her look softens as she turns back to the baby. “Least this way there’ll be someone to look out for him, even just a little.” 

She can’t take him home that day, anyways. Doc wants to hold on to him because he was born early. But _She_ leaves two days later, soon as she can, and Catherine, through great bribery and suck-uppery, manages to drag Willis into the clinic with her. 

He’s mostly drunk at the time, but who cares? Catherine’s always been flexible. 

She can see Doc’s kinda grinding her teeth together, but she just folds her arms and raises an eyebrow. She knows the rules ‘round here; no questions, no cops, no fuss. 

Now there’s a baby, the mama’s gone, but the daddy’s here to get him. Drunk as all hell, but his girl is sober. Doesn’t matter what Doc thinks, now. Doc hasn’t got a choice. 

It’s a year later, after a fight with Willis ends with Catherine slumped against a kitchen cabinet in the remains of a coffee mug, that she starts to wonder what she’s gotten herself into. 

No, she’s wondered, yeah, in passing. But right now, staring blankly at the counter across from her and wondering whether or not she should wait for everything to stop being so _blurry_ goddammit, that she admits to herself past-her may have made a mistake. 

In the end she drags herself off the floor, bundles up her baby, and limps over to Leslie Thompkins’. 

She has a scowl on her face the entire time as the Doc personally stitches her up. The disapproval is just _radiating_ from the lady. But. No cops, no questions, no fuss, right? 

(Catherine can admit to herself that, a few years ago, she may have refused to come back to the clinic. Out of spite. 

Catherine has been a mother for a year now. 

Catherine a few years ago, she can admit, was possibly an idiot of a girl.) 

All the while, he’s seated in one of the visitor chairs Doc dragged in, playing with one of those multi-part fidget-toy things that the Doc always has on hand for younger patients. 

Jason. Her Jay-jay. 

(She’s not quite sure _why_ she picked Jason, but she liked it. Willis didn’t give a shit at the time. He was still away more than not and drunk and fuming about _her_. 

It was fine by Catherine. 

“Peter,” he’d said randomly, about a month—two months? In. 

Catherine blinked. “What?” 

He pointed clumsily at Jason. “Peter. Name’s Peter.” 

She blinked. Again. Cause yeah, she knew Willis’s name was Peter Willis Todd, and... “Thought you hated that name.” 

“Family name,” he grunted. “If we’re keepin’ the brat, might ‘s well name ‘im.” 

Catherine opened her mouth. Glanced at the baby she was changing. Glanced at Willis. And closed her mouth. 

“Jason Peter Todd,” she says, another couple of weeks later. It’s one of Willis’s good days. 

“Huh?” 

“Well, he’s already been Jason the last coupla months. Kinda late to change that. Jason Peter Todd.” 

And cause it was one of his I-don't-give-a-crap days and not a I-am-king-do-as-I-say days, he just grunted. 

Catherine decided to take it and hope it stuck.) 

Doc’s disapproval thing, though, is starting to get on her nerves. 

Catherine sits cross-legged on the coffee table, watching as her two-year-old lies on his stomach on the floor, flipping through a board book courtesy of Mr. Kirk two floors down. 

The kid’s enamored. Catherine makes a note to get a library card. 

The sofa’s broken, right now. And a bit bloody. She’s not exactly sure what to do with it. 

She’ll. Think about it. Get up in a few minutes. She’s possibly bleeding a little. And—shit is that—that might possibly be blood on Jason’s PJs. Shit. 

Oh God. What is she _doing_ right now? 

There’s days when she thinks. Maybe. The smart thing to do would’ve been to let the baby go, when she found out about him two years ago. But then she thinks of being a kid and everything in her goes _nuh-uh._

But these days...Catherine’s always had a mind of her own. But. Kid. And Willis. And somedays she is genuinely scared out of her mind. 

She’s got no love for Willis Todd. 

But. She’s young, yet. Just barely in her twenties. With a toddler kid. Oh, people do it, she knows they do. It’s a risk you have to choose to take. Maybe she could go to Doc’s place, maybe she’d let her work there, Lord knows the woman gives her enough grief even if she never actually _says_ anything. 

No questions, and all, but the Doc ain’t stupid, she’s got to _know_ where half the bruises on half the women and girls she treats come from. Just how many does she get, anyways? A lot, probably, her discretion is why she’s so popular in these parts. Catherine knows the argument. Can’t take em all, so don’t take any. 

There’s a chance, she knows. She might be able to find honest work somewhere, a place to sleep. But then there are the what-ifs. What if it’s not enough? What if, to stay alive, she has to turn...elsewhere? How would she do that without giving up her kid? 

Too many what-ifs. Too many things that could go completely shit wrong. More than there are here, with Willis Todd. Even if he is a drunkard no good piece of crap at least he can do the dirty work. At least they have a roof over their head, and food in their bellies, and locks on the door, for all they are worth. 

She sighs, resting her chin in her hand. 

Foster care _could be_ so much worse, she knows. 

Her kid deserves so much more, she thinks. 

This is probably the best he’d get though, she tells herself. 

Catherine grabs Jason’s hand. “ _No."_ Terrible twos? Hah. Try terrible threes. Terrible toddlerhood? Do they get better? Someone please tell her they get better. 

Jason scowls at her, tries to wriggle away. 

“Hitting is _bad_ ,” Catherine says, firmly, not letting go. “Very, very bad. We don’t hit people.” 

Jason stills, then, tilts his head at her. “Daddy hits.” 

Catherine freezes. 

“Is Daddy bad?” 

“Um.” Shit, shit, shit, she can’t have him saying that in front of Willis, ohdearlordwhatisshesupposedtosay. 

“Daddy is daddy.” Grown-up logic? 

“But daddy hits.” 

_Let it go, kid. “_ And he’s daddy. But _we_ don’t hit.” 

The kid chews his lip, seeming to consider that. 

Catherine kinda hates herself. 

“What do we say when we do something bad?” she asks. 

“Sorry, Mama.” 

Catherine pulls him into her arms. “It’s okay, baby.” She stares, glassily, at the apartment around her. Cracked plaster and brokeny furniture, the pile of beer bottles and the plastic bag she’d left on the counter. “I’m sorry, too,” she mumbles, indistinct enough that the boy in her arms can’t hear. 

Jason is four when it finally happens. 

The sound of hand against face echoes through the room, and when Catherine runs out to the living room to see her little boy, wide-eyed and shocked, fall against the table— 

The dread and wariness all flare into and _anger_ Catherine hasn’t felt in—a while—and she sees red. Next thing she knows she’s in Willis’s face and there’s screaming and that’s her voice, and then her face is stinging and she’s falling and there’s a crack as her head hits something behind her. And crying and “Mama? Mama, wake up!” And she’s on the floor, with Jason, and there’s an ugly hand-shaped bruise starting to darken on his face and Catherine knows she has a matching one, and Willis is nowhere to be seen and. 

And. 

She stumbles to her feet (again). Absently soothes Jason, swinging him up to her hip. There’s cash she’s hidden in the bathroom and just two sets of clothes and she hesitates a moment before she adds the plastic shopping bag in the kitchen cabinet and the one book Jason owns, the one from Mr. Kirk, and whatever cash she knows Willis is hiding, for good measure. 

It’s dark out. 

“Mama?” 

“Hush, Jay-jay. We’re just going for a walk.” 

She makes it five blocks before a man leaning against a laundromat leers at her. 

She recognizes him, vaguely. He works for Joker. 

She turns around. 

Later, with everything put back where she’d gotten it (especially Willis’s money) and Jason curled up, fast asleep, on his mattress, Catherine stares up at the ceiling. 

_Don’t you dare_. 

She gets up and hunts down the one thing she hadn’t unpacked. 

There’s a bunch of children playing in the street. The youngest is maybe two, three, the oldest eight. They run in circles and chase each other and yell and scream and tumble. 

There’s clumps of women watching from the steps of apartments all down the street. 

Catherine sits alone. Slumped over her knees, chin in hand. 

One little boy, small, straw-blond, hazel eyes, maybe only four, trips, falls. 

Most the kids don’t notice, running right around him. But another boy stops, offers a hand to pull him up. 

Catherine watches them converse, in low tones, watches the five-year-old help the younger boy dust off before they both dash in her direction. 

Jason tugs at her sleeve. “Mama, can we get my books? Sammy wants to see.” 

Catherine thinks about the library books up in their apartment. 

She used to read them to him, every night. These days, Jason reads them himself. 

The thought is almost enough to guilt her into going up to the fifth floor to get them. 

“Not right now, baby.” 

Jason’s face falls, but he doesn’t protest. The little blond boy tugs his arm. “Let’s play robots instead!” 

Catherine watches his face light up, and the two of them dash off again, worries forgotten. 

She doesn’t deserve this little boy. 

She stays on the stoop, and watches him play. 

Jason is almost noiseless as he edges towards the couch and climbs up. Tucks himself against her side and opens his book. 

“Fox, socks, box, K-nox,” he starts. Makes an adorable-wrinkle face that seems a little comical on a six-year-old, and keeps going. “Knox. Knox in box. Fox in socks. Knox on fox in socks in box.” 

Catherine feels a fresh onslaught of tears as she wraps an arm around him. He snuggles against her, and she runs her fingers through his hair. 

Her sweet, clever boy. 

She wonders how many times he’s done this that she was too out of it to remember. 

He doesn’t belong here. 

Not with Catherine and Willis Todd. Not in this crap neighborhood where no one dared stick a toe out past dark, and even daytime wasn’t much safer. Where the teachers hardly gave a crap, and so the kids didn’t either. 

Broken. Falling apart. 

Her boy’s wings had been clipped before he even had a chance to _try_ to fly. 

“I can’t do it, Mr. Fox, sir. I’m so sorry, Mr. Knox, sir.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm writing and posting in chronological order but this here is kinda the prequel? There's like. A five-year time jump. So now I'm starting to wonder if I should've posted this as a prequel?  
> Eh. Too late now I guess.  
> Trade plot twists for dramatic irony, hm?
> 
> And okay, if anyone is actually reading this and wondering, I'm sorry if Leslie is coming off as weird? I mean. Tbh I've never liked her very much. I'm not gonna write her as a terrible person because of that, cause Leslie isn't a terrible person. She's actually pretty cool. It's just--most of what I remember of her is from No Man's Land, and a bit from War Games, and then I've seen her show up in Robin and Nightwing and Red Robin and I think Gotham Knights and...you get the idea. Anyways. I'm not gonna argue philosophy here, it's just she just has this holier-than-thou attitude? Which is just one of my especial pet peeves when it comes to people.   
> And yeah, it's comics, different writers different attitudes etc. etc. and I'm not sure she's always like that. Leslie's gonna show up quite a bit, though. She's a doctor, a good one, and a caring one, but she's also very vocal (even without using words) so one of her personality flaws IS coming off as condescending and a bit too stuck on doing things her way. Sue me, she's a person, she can't be perfect can she?


	3. Timothy Jackson Drake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even if he's just a baby, no one really knows a lot about Timothy Jackson Drake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo this chapter was supposed to be edited but I didn't have the time? But I'm gonna post it?

Timothy Jackson Drake hardly cries when he’s born. 

Janet Drake is just glad it’s finally over. 

The nurse puts the baby in her arms, and she stares down at it. It stares back at her with solemn eyes. 

Janet is tired. She wonders, briefly, if she should be feeling...more. Some kind of connection with the child cradled against her chest. 

The train of thought is very brief. 

She passes the baby over to the nurse quickly enough. She carried a child, she’d given birth. The Drakes had an heir. 

She’s fulfilled her responsibility in that regards. 

_Never again_ , she thinks, and sinks back against the pillows, ready to sleep for days. 

Janet stays home with the baby for six months. She spends most that time alone in her bedroom or the library. 

It’s Mia, the nanny, who coos over Baby Timmy as he learns to roll over, sit up, and crawl. She holds his hands as he stumbles down the halls, claps and laughs as he takes his first steps on his own. 

(Mia’s mother has a heart attack, and Mia take a weekend off to go see to her. She’s still trying to pull herself back together when she walks up the steps to Drake Manor that Monday, and reaches for the key Janet had given her. 

As soon as she opens the heavy doors, she sees little Timmy sitting at the bottom of the sweeping staircase, crying. Janet is about halfway up and red in the face. 

She tells Mia she’s spoiling Tim. Mia apologizes. Janet says she’s too emotionally attached. Mia...apologizes. She’s not quite sure what’s happening. 

She goes home that morning in tears. 

She’s not welcome back at Drake Manor. Time to find another job. 

Janet was right about one thing. She _is_ emotionally attached, although she wouldn’t say it’s a _bad_ thing. 

Nevertheless. Her heart breaks for the little boy she left behind, but she doesn’t know that there’s anything she can do for him.) 

Rachel Stringer is a hard-faced woman, stoic and rather abrupt. 

When she arrives at Drake Manor, Jack Drake is already packing the car. Janet is on her way out. 

“There are no special conditions to be considered,” she tells her. Then, “I’m sure you know how to do your job.” 

And they are gone. 

Rachel doesn’t watch the car go. She shuts the door and goes to look for her new charge. 

He’s sitting, cross-legged, in the middle of a pile of blocks in a nursery. 

Rachel feels a smile cross her face for the first time that day. 

(The thing about Rachel is, she’s had a hard life that’s left her with no family and a hard demeanor, but she cares for her charges.) 

“Well, hello, there. I’m Rachel. I’ll be taking care of you for a while.” 

He eyes her...and promptly stats babbling, quite serious-faced, and hands her a block. 

(Given a week or so, Rachel is a bit surprised she can make out words. She can swear the kid knows what they mean.) 

Two months later, she’s rocking Tim to sleep when Jack and Janet come home. 

Janet sees Rachel with Tim in her arms and promptly loses it. 

She leaves Jack Drake to handle his wife while she goes into the nursery, away from Janet’s screaming, to put the startled baby to sleep and into his crib. 

Jack Drake is in the kitchen. She doesn’t see Janet. 

“You sure you don’t want me to stay longer?” 

“I think it would be best if you didn’t.” 

She just nods. Jack Drake hands her a check and walks her to the door. 

“There’s something not quite right with the mama,” Rachel tells him, as she stands on the stoop. “For Tim’s sake, I’d suggest you both look into it.” 

For her trouble, she gets a door slammed in her face and a letter informing her that her services are no longer required. 

Marilyn is unremarkable in the fact that she simply...exists. 

She feeds the baby. 

She stoically gets through his teething phase. 

She seems largely unimpressed when her charge starts putting together two-three word sentences, or to feed himself when she’s taking too long and he grows impatient. 

She cleans up messes, keeps the baby physically healthy, and has a tendency to plop him down in front of a television. 

(She quits five months later when her husband decides to move out of Gotham.) 

(Janet Drake is a terrible mother. 

Was it worth it, to have a child? 

One more trip. Dubai. She just needs to clear her head, she’ll feel more herself. 

She hires another nanny.) 

Melissa Hart is a woman with a reputation for keeping her charges alive, even if they never like her very much. 

Timothy is one year and two months old. He can see why not a lot of people seem to like his new nanny. 

Melissa is in the Drake’s living room, TV on full blast. She vaguely hears the bathroom door shut, then the refrigerator. This little rich brat is surprisingly able to handle himself. Works for her. 

Tim tiptoes back up the stairs, his prize—a banana from the fridge—in hand. It’s always a little tricky cracking those open without turning the whole banana into smush, which he doesn’t really like even if he’ll always eat the banana anyways (there may have been an...incident involving food. With Melissa.) But he has a pair of scissors from Mom’s drawer hidden under his mattress, and if he’s careful he can use it to make a hole and that makes the banana easier to open. 

How long have Mom and Dad been gone? He doesn’t know. He eats his banana, and spends another day playing with his puzzles and flipping through his books. He’s been watching the bouncy words on the screen during the songs on TV, and he can remember Rachel (and very occasionally, Marilyn) reading the words that go with the pictures in his books, and he’s starting to think he knows what his Leapfrog is trying to teach him. 

When he gets bored, he grabs his bear, Methuselah, from where he was watching Tim read on the floor and curls up on his bed. There’s no railing anymore because Tim is not a baby anymore, and too old to roll off the bed. 

Timmy tells Methuselah stories. He talks and talks and it makes him a little happy, to hear a voice that isn’t angry, even if it’s his own. 

Downstairs, the TV goes silent, and Tim freezes on the bed. 

Quiet 

Quiet 

Quiet... 

He waits. 

“Oh my God!” someone squeals, and music starts playing again. 

Tim breathes. 

“That was a close one,” he whispers to Methuselah. 

Mom and Dad come back...later. Tim’s not sure how long it’s been. It was an awful lot of days. 

Melissa leaves. 

Mom and Dad leave. 

Melissa comes back. 

It’s not-as-many-days before Mom and Dad come back, and Melissa leaves again. 

Mom and Dad are running around and moving suitcases around. Tim watches from the upstairs landing. 

Mom and Dad are always very busy. Tim still has to be quiet and good, when they are home. 

But he likes it better than when Melissa is here. 

So when the doorbell rings, and Dad opens the door, and there is a new lady standing there, and Tim knows Melissa won’t be coming back—he doesn’t really mind. 

(What Tim doesn’t know is Melissa was actually stabbed in one of the seedier parts of Gotham by a previous charge, now grown up. 

It threw Jack and Janet off for a bit. It bore further investigation. Once they got back from Paris. 

They hire another young woman and set out. 

“I’ll have someone look into it,” Jack promises. Janet nods.) 

Janet doesn’t know when exactly it happened, or how, but one day she and Jack come home to a little face watching from the staircase, and she looks at _it_ and sees a little boy. 

Little boy. Her little boy? 

It still doesn’t sound right. 

When she and Jack are in Madrid two weeks later, she puts a video call to the nanny. What was her name? Carla? Darla? 

She tells her to show her Tim. 

(It becomes something she does, after. Every now-and-then, five-minute video calls. She sees the boy’s face. He sees her. 

He seems healthy. 

Safe. 

Happy? 

It’s been...odd, since the last woman got stabbed. 

They can’t afford for the Drake’s heir to come to harm. 

Can’t afford for—for their _son_ to come to harm.) 

Jack and Janet are in Gotham. 

It is also Tim’s second birthday. 

It’s Jack’s idea. They go out for dinner. The waitress coos over how adorable and well-behaved little Tim is, and Janet watches as he politely, but excitedly, informs her he is _two years old_ now. 

Huh. Are two-year-olds always this...literate? 

Janet has no idea. 

They get ice cream for dessert, and Tim falls asleep in the car. 

“So,” Jack says. Janet looks at him. “We’ve got all the loose ends tied up with Drake Industries. Looks like we can stay in Gotham for a while.” 

Janet nods and looks out the window. “It’s just as well. There’s...much to be done in Gotham, as well.” 

There are old connections to pick up and new ones to make, social events she’s been missing. There’s power to be found in Gotham’s Elite, and it’s time the Drakes began to settle into their native city again. 

(And meanwhile, she needs to figure out what to _do_ with the tiny child who haunts the manor.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UPDATE SCHEDULE NOTE:  
> So I'm currently visiting my sister and her three kids, so I'm gonna be busy and not have a lot of time to write during the day, and I'm also sharing a bedroom with my other sister, so I can't stay up writing until I fall asleep like I usually do. So next two weeks it's gonna be slow going on the writing process. Best case scenario I get to post chapters anyways; worst case a two-week hiatus.  
> Anyways, hope y'all liked that chapter, even if it needs some work. Night :)


	4. The Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Haly's Circus is in town. The Drakes and Jason and Willis Todd attend.  
> The Graysons perform.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm Back!  
> Enter: The Plot. (kinda.)

“Oy, Jason.” 

Jason looked up from _The Boxcar Children._ His dad was standing on the doorway, smirking. He was standing straight, and his eyes weren’t darting around, and he also didn’t look like he wanted to strangle somebody, so Jason relaxed his body a little, even if he didn’t let his guard down. “Ya?” 

Willis waved two pieces of paper in the air. “We’re goin’ to the circus.” 

Jason blinked. “You bought tickets?” 

Willis threw back his head and guffawed. “Aw, hell no, kid. Lifted ‘em offa some doddering old pair. They can’t keep an eye on their shit, they don’t deserve it. Now go put your shoes on.” 

Jason was automatically closing his book and getting off the couch when he paused and bit his lip. “What about Mom?” 

Willis waved the tickets again. 

“Only got two tickets. Now hurry it up.” 

That...wasn’t really what Jason had meant. Mom was out at the grocery store. She’d be worried if she came home and found Jason gone. But Willis had already disappeared into the hall. 

But. Willis was in a good mood, right now. And _not_ going along with him always put him in a bad mood, and then he and Mom would be screaming at each other again. 

Decided, Jason scribbled a note-- “Mom, outside with Dad, Jay”--and stuck it to the fridge. 

“You comin’ or not, boy?” Willis hollered from down the hall, and Jason slipped haphazardly into his sneakers before running out the door. 

There were so many _people_. 

Tim leaned over his father’s shoulder, watching all the _people_. He’d never seen so many people, except on TV. There were tall people and short people, kids dragging their parents by their hands and sitting on their dad’s shoulders or piggybacking on older kids’ backs. There were some people who looked like they didn’t want to be there, but mostly everyone was smiling and laughing—even if it was just in their eyes—and they looked so _happy_. 

Mom and Dad looked happy, too, even if Mom still looked kinda tired. They were holding hands, and Dad was carrying Tim with his other arm. 

Janet squeezed Jack’s hand. “Jack,” she said, and when her husband looked over she nodded at a couple and a little boy standing by a tent. All three were in red, green, and yellow acrobat’s uniforms. The woman was tying up her hair, whilst the little boy—probably seven or eight—spun around her in circles, chattering about something. The man watched all three of them arms crossed and a fond smile across his face. 

Jack jostled the little boy in his arm. “Hey, Timmy.” The little boy turned from where he’d been staring behind them to look at him inquisitively. “Look over there. Those are the acrobats.” 

Tim’s eyes focused on the little family, the interest clear across his face. Janet raised her eyebrows at Jack, lip twisting, and Jack shot her a grin and a wink. “Let’s get a picture, shall we?” He linked his arm through Janet’s and started towards the family—they seemed to be standing in front of the seer’s tent. Janet pursed her lips, shook her head but followed. 

“Hello there,” Jack said with a wide, slightly goofy grin. 

The man straightened, dropping his arms, and the woman—almost unconsciously—reached out a hand to settle on the boy’s shoulder and keep him still at her side. 

The man smiled, friendly enough. “Well, hello there.” 

“You’re the acrobat family, aren’t you?” Jack asked, still grinning. “The Flying Graysons?” 

“Yup!” a little voice chirped, and Jack looked down at the little boy grinning widely as he bounced on his toes. 

His father laughed. “Uh-hunh, that’s us.” 

Janet stepped forward with a sweet smile, resting a hand on Tim’s back. The two year old had watched the exchange with wide eyes, but the older boy seemed to have especially caught his attention. “It’s Timmy’s first time at the circus. Could we get a picture, maybe?” 

Grayson smiled and glanced at his wife, who nodded with her own smile. “Of course!” 

“Great!” Jack set Tim down on the ground. “Stay here, Tim,” he said, reaching for the strap of the camera around his neck. 

Tim watched the older boy with interest. All the other people in costumes seemed to be adults. So why was there one kid? 

The boy turned to look at Tim, suddenly, and Tim blushed. It was impolite to stare. 

But the boy didn’t seem to mind. He smiled wide and bounced over, dropping into a crouch in front of Tim. 

“Hi there!” he said, still grinning. “My name’s Dick. What’s yours?” 

Tim smiled back shyly. “Tim,” he answered. 

“Nice to meet you, Timmy,” Dick said, and Tim blinked, because he’d just told the boy his name was _Tim_. 

“Dickie,” Dick’s mom called, at the same time Jack said, “C’mon, Tim.” 

Dick stood up, grabbing Tim’s hand and leading him to where their parents were standing in front of the tent, a man holding Jack’s camera across from them. He plopped down cross-legged on the dirt in front of them, pulling Tim into his lap and wrapping his arms around the toddler. 

Tim blinked, surprised. 

“Smile, Timmy,” Dick said, and the camera flashed. 

As the grown-ups started moving above them, Dick popped up off the ground again, helping Tim to his feet before giving him a hug. “It was nice meeting you, Timmy. Have fun! Oh, and make _sure_ you see our show. It’s the _best_.” He grinned widely, leaning forward and whispering like he was telling an important secret. “And I’m gonna do an extra-special quadruple flip just for you, so watch me carefully, ‘kay?” 

Tim nodded, wide-eyed. 

“Time to go, Dickie,” Dick’s mother called, and Dick ran over to grab her hand as Jack scooped up Tim again. 

Dick turned as his family walked away, grinning and waving. “Bye, Timmy!” he yelled, and Tim watched the three of them disappear into the crowd. 

“You ready for your first show, Dickie?” Johnny asked, grinning as he ruffled his cousin’s hair. 

Dick beamed at him around a handful of popcorn. “Yup!” 

They weren’t supposed to be eating right now, but Johnny had decided he wanted caramel corn, and brought the younger boy along. (If they got caught, Dickie’s puppy eyes were a great escape tactic. And also it was the kid’s first show, he deserved a treat didn’t he?) 

“Good.” He nudged the kid’s head with his elbow, and Dick scowled and smacked his arm with his box of popcorn. “Oy! Watch the popcorn, I paid good money for that.” Dick stuck his tongue out and tossed a kernel at him, and Johnny caught it in his mouth. 

They were still in the middle of tossing popcorn kernels at each other when Johnny saw bright colors and _sequins_ out of the corner of his eye. “Oh, shit!” 

Dick looked at him curiously, but Johnny slapped a hand over his mouth and half-carried half-dragged the kid into the shadows of one of the tents. 

“Shh,” he hissed, and peered out. Maya Faruq and Harriet Snyder were wandering past. Maya was a good sport, she’d helped Johnny sneak popcorn a few times when he was younger and she’d still been a teenager, but Ms. Snyder would _definitely_ snitch. 

Once they’d disappeared into the crowd, he dropped back against the tent next to Dick. “They’re gone,” he sighed. 

No response. Frowning, Johnny glanced at the kid beside him. Dickie was staring at something in the other direction, frowning and creepily _quiet_. The kid was always talking. 

“Dick?” 

Without warning, the younger boy hopped to his feet and took off. 

“Dickie!” Johnny yelled, scrambling to his feet. Shit. Sneaking off to steal popcorn was one thing, but if he lost his cousin he was _dead_. 

Long legs were a blessing. He swerved around a tent to see Dick stop in front of someone’s back. 

“Mr. Haley?” Dick said, worry bleeding through his voice. 

The man jerked, surprised, and whirled around. Johnny blinked. The man looked terrible. His eyes were wide and _wild_ , hair disheveled as though he’d been running his hands through it. He looked...spooked. 

Uneasy, Johnny stepped forward to grab his cousin’s shoulders. 

“Dickie! Johnny,” Mr. Haley said, trying for a smile that came out shaky and a little maniacal. 

Johnny pulled Dickie a little closer before he’d even thought about it, and Mr. Haley dropped the smile and cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t you boys be with your parents?” 

“Yeah,” Johnny said, a little hoarsely. “We’re--we’re going right now, actually,” he said, shooting his own unconvincing smile and making a note to _talk to Dad_ as he started to swing Dickie around with him. 

Dickie dug his feet in. “Everything okay, Mr. Haley?” 

“ _Dickie_ ,” Johnny hissed, as Mr. Haley laughed shakily and said, “Of course, everything’s fine, why would you think it wasn’t?” 

And dear God, they were a circus, an institution of _performers_ and how was their owner such a _terrible actor_. 

“What did that man want?” Dickie asked, and Johnny was wishing the kid would _shut up_. 

Of course he wouldn’t, though. In the circus, there were places you had to be careful, and there were people that were family. Mr. Haley was supposed to be safe. 

But Johnny didn’t like the look in Mr. Haley’s face; it reminded him too much of situations he shouldn’t have been in and scrapes that were too close. Their parents had taught them to be wary of strangers; experience had taught Johnny that even the people you know have secrets. 

“Oh! That was nothing.” Mr. Haley smiled again. “Just a disgruntled customer, nothing to worry about.” 

“That’s good to hear,” Johnny said politely. “Now c’mon Dickie, Aunt Mary’s gonna be wondering where we’ve gotten to.” He tossed Dickie over his shoulder and started to _go_. 

“Hold up a sec, boys,” Mr. Haley called, and Johnny froze. “Maybe don’t bring this up around, yeah? Don’t want anyone worrying before the big show.” 

“Sure thing, Mr. Haley,” he said evenly. 

“Thanks, Johnny. See ya boys.” 

“See ya, Mr. Haley,” and he walked as quickly as he could out of the shadows behind the tents. 

“That was one very angry customer,” Dick murmured in his ear. “And Mr. Haley looked scared.” 

Johnny felt something in his gut twist. He let Dick slip from his shoulder, squeezing him in a hug before he let him drop back to the ground. 

“You’ve got me beat there, kiddo,” he murmured. 

“Johnny!” And there was Mom. “Where have you been? We need to get backstage. _Johnny_ ,” she said, bending down to swipe at popcorn crumbs around Dick’s lips. “Were you sneaking popcorn again? How many times have I told you—” 

“Mo-om,” Johnny groaned. 

Karla stood up, frowned, and reached for Johnny’s face. He half-heartedly tried to bat her hands away and glanced at Dick. 

Dick raised his eyebrows, and Johnny shook his head. 

He wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t sure what they’d just seen—he didn’t like it. On one hand, something was definitely wrong, and he wanted to pass of the whole thing to an adult. 

On the other hand, Mr. Haley had asked them not to tell anyone, and Johnny...wasn’t sure how _strong_ that request was. Mr. Haley was safe, wasn’t he? 

He didn’t know what the right thing to do was. He needed to think about it, clear his head. 

‘Flying’, as Dick liked to call it, always helped. 

After all, whatever was wrong—it could wait until after the show, couldn’t it? 

Aunt Karla clapped her hands. “Alright, boys!” 

“Quarter hour to showtime,” Uncle Rick winked. 

Dick bounced on his toes. He was so _excited_. 

He shot a grin at Johnny, but his face fell, a little, when he noticed his cousin’s distracted look. 

Mr. Haley, and Johnny, didn’t want to tell anyone about what had happened. 

“Everything okay, Johnny?” Mami asked, worried. 

You couldn’t be distracted while flying. That was important. It was one of the first things Mami and Tati taught Dick. 

Johnny smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Aunty, I’m fine. Just...thinking about something.” 

Uncle Rick put an arm around is shoulders. “No distractions,” he said, warningly. 

“I know,” Johnny said, sounding annoyed now. 

This was all getting a bit too serious for Dick’s liking. He was _excited_. 

“How much longer?” he asked, bouncing on his toes again. 

Tati scooped him up and put him on his shoulders. “Two minutes less than last time,” he said teasingly, and everyone laughed. 

Jason and Willis found seats about halfway up the bleachers ringing the tent. 

Willis had gotten them a box of popcorn—Jason didn’t know how, but he wasn’t gonna ask, either. 

The crowd around them was so loud Jason wasn’t quite sure he’d be able to hear himself if he’d talked. 

He hoped they’d be quiet before the show started. 

He’d read a lot about circuses, but this was his first time actually seeing one. 

It was pretty exciting. 

All of a sudden all the lights went off, and all the voices began to fade. Once there was complete silence, several spotlights flicked on, their beams focusing in on a man in a top hat standing in the center of the ring. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” the man smiled, raising his hands. His voice was deep and booming, filling the entire tent. “Welcome to Haley’s Circus!” 

The Drakes had front row seats. Reserved, some of the best in the house. 

Jack balanced Tim in his lap so he’d actually be able to see over the railing that separated them from the ring. 

Tim watched the lights. 

He watched the elephants. 

The strongman. 

The lions. 

The clowns. 

They were all very nice. 

But he was waiting for Dick. 

He was very excited. 

“You’re up, Graysons,” one of the stagehands called. 

Mami pulled Dick against her side. “Let’s go, Robin,” she said, smiling down at him. Dick beamed up at her, grabbing her hand. He was so excited, he wasn’t sure he could talk. 

Dick would be with Mami for the opening. Mami gestured for him to head up the ladder first, and he scrambled up, knowing she was right behind him. 

The platforms were very high up, and very dark. Down below, he could see Maya and Sheza leaving the stage, and Mr. Haley taking their place. 

“Ladies and Gentlemen,” he said, one hand on the brim of his hat. “Allow me to introduce... _The Flying_ _Graysons_ _!”_

They flew in from seemingly nowhere. 

“John...” 

“Rick...” 

“Karla...” 

“Mary...” 

“Johnny...” 

“And, the Grayson’s newest member and the star of tonight’s show, _Dickie Grayson_!” 

_No way._ Jason watched in openmouthed wonder as a boy swung through the air, gripping the trapeze, and let go, somersaulting through open air before grabbing on of the ladies’ hands. 

He couldn’t have been much older than Jason was, and Jason felt a pang of jealousy as he wondered how it would feel to fly like that. 

He clapped as hard as he could when several platforms lit up to reveal the Graysons, each standing with one arm lifted in a wave. 

And then one of them put two hands on a bar and _jumped_. 

They could _fly_. 

This was _awesome_. 

Tim had to crane his neck a bit to see properly, but he didn’t really mind. 

They were _flying_. 

He kept a special eye on Dick. 

He saw him jump. Flip. 

Once. 

Twice. 

Thrice. 

Four times! 

Tim was sure he had to be cheering louder than anyone else in the tent. 

“And now, for the Flying Grayson’s signature act. All performed without the safety of a net!” 

“Time to watch, Dickie,” Mami whispered. Dick nodded. He was a little disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to join, but he knew why. Performing without a net was _dangerous_. He’d be able to join the act, eventually, when he was older. 

This was only his first performance. _Obviously_ he wouldn’t be able to join yet. 

Instead, he settled down on the platform, letting his legs dangle down, to watch. 

Jason watched as they removed the net. Watched one acrobat grab the trapeze, swing out. 

Tim was pretty sure the next person to jump, swing, flip, and join the first acrobat was Dick’s dad. 

“Good luck, Mami,” Dick said, and Mami blew him a kiss before she jumped. 

One more person. Were they all gonna end up on the same trapeze? Jason watched. 

The next person was a boy, older than Dick. Would Dick be in the act, too? Tim watched. 

Dick knew how the act would go. Johnny was swinging towards their parents. Dick watched. 

High up in the air, Dick was the only person who saw the sudden look of horror on John’s face. Rick’s. Mary’s. Karla’s. The sudden confusion on Johnny’s. 

Down below, Tim and Jason, amongst hundreds of others, eyes trained on the acrobats, saw the moment that Johnny’s hands met Mary and Karla’s. Saw the moment that something _snapped_. The moment they all began to fall. 

Up on the platform, Dick screamed. 

No one was quite sure what Mary and Karla did, but Johnny was back in the air. Even as the four eldest Graysons plummeted. 

Tim’s eyes had gone to the platform where he knew Dick had last been. He saw the youngest Grayson grab a trapeze, swing out again. Towards Johnny. 

Johnny had hit the high point in his flight. He could feel himself starting to fall again when he saw Dick, hanging from his knees, eyes desperate as he reached out. 

Johnny knew, if he stretched his arms far as they could, he might be able to grab his younger cousin’s wrists. 

He calculated angles, considered weights. Just how strong his little cousin was. 

Thought of the trapeze, snapping as he’d caught his mother and aunts’ hands. 

Was it just the one trapeze? 

“Sorry, Dickie,” he whispered. 

He didn’t reach out. 

Saw, more than heard, Dick screaming his name. 

Jason could hear the sickeningly wet _thump_ even all the way where he and Willis sat. Even over the sound of people screaming and Willis cursing nonstop beside him. 

It was even louder where Tim and his parents sat. Tim’s eyes flickered, shocked, to the still bodies in the dirt, before jumping back up, where Dick was still hanging off the trapeze and the last Grayson was still falling. 

Johnny didn’t hear his family hit the ground. 

Dick saw them all fall and land, still, blood pooling all around them. All five of them. 

The tent erupted in chaos. Some people sat, shocked, in their seats, trying to process what had just happened. What to do next. 

Others had panicked and were scrambling to get _out_. 

Willis grabbed Jason, swung him onto his shoulders. “Better get outta here ‘fore we get trampled.” 

Jack seemed to have suddenly remembered the current situation was not one a two-year-old should be watching, and had turned Tim around so his face was pressed against his shoulder, even as Jack and Janet stayed. 

Members of the circus were scrambling towards the bodies. Yelling for someone to call an ambulance, checking for pulses. 

So nobody, it seemed, noticed the little boy who stumbled off a trapeze onto a platform, and scrambled down the ladder. 

Not even the well-dressed man who stood up from his front-row seat, leapt over the railing, and shoved his way into the ring, face tilted up and eyes scanning the darkened platforms. 

So it seemed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...?  
> (Hides under a blanket)  
> Okay, so, like I said, getting into the plot here, and what I should've mentioned a LONG time ago is that this is an AU. Like, very AU.  
> So yes. Fall of the Graysons. Basic Robin lore.  
> Annnnnnd I'mma stop talkin now.  
> Please excuse my rambling, I just feel like this was a mood swing somehow. And also I feel like my writing style changes based on my mood and this is being posted after my two week vacation, a very busy week and a couple of really shitty days.  
> Okay, I'm done for real now. Please excuse my need to overexplain everything lol.


	5. Nightmares

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Watching five people fall is a traumatic experience, especially for a child.  
> But the nightmares aren't over yet.

Once Dick’s feet hit the ground, he whirled towards the center of the ring. 

There were too many people. _And he wasn’t tall enough_. He couldn’t see them—he needed to see them— 

Someone grabbed him by the arms, pulled him away. 

“ _Hey_!” Dick screamed. He thrashed his arms and kicked— “ _Let go of me—_ ” but the other person was too strong— “HEL—” and there was a hand over his mouth. He _bit down_ as hard as he could and there was blood in his mouth but the hand didn’t _move_ — 

“Easy, Dickie,” a low voice rumbled, and Dick stopped struggling for just a moment. He didn’t recognize the voice—how did they know his name? 

Hands whirled him around, gripping his shoulders tightly, and Dick looked up at his captor. 

The man staring down at him looked _sick_. He was pale and his veins were sticking up and his eyes—his eyes looked _yellow_. 

“Who _are_ you?” he asked warily, backing away. Mami had made sure he knew—since he was very small—not to talk to strangers unless she and Tati were there. 

(Mami and Tati—they wouldn’t—they _fell_ — 

He knew _why_ it was dangerous to fall. They’d been so still. And there was so much blood. And Mami had explained—when Old Lady Jeanna—and—no, it couldn’t be, it _couldn’t be_ —) 

The man smiled. Mr. Haley’s smile from earlier flashed across Dick’s mind—fake and _wrong, so wrong_ — 

“It’s okay, Dickie. The Court will take care of you.” 

_Kidnapper_. Dick turned around and _ran_. 

He only made it three steps before hands caught his arms again, and something sharp pricked the side of his neck. 

He thought he screamed before everything went black. 

“And just where the _hell_ have you been?” Jason curled in on himself as he stepped inside after Willis, shutting the door behind them. Mom sounded scared out of her mind and worried and a little _hysterical_. 

“Out, the hell is it to you?” Willis snapped back, heading towards the kitchen. 

Catherine’s eyes landed on Jason, and her shoulders slumped as her face crumbled. “ _Jason_. Oh my God, Jay-jay.” She ran towards him, gathering him up in her arms and squeezing tightly. Jason wrapped his arms around her neck and clung back, burying his face in her tangled hair. 

She turned around, Jason still held firmly in her arms, and faced Willis, who was standing in the kitchen doorway with a bottle of beer. 

“Where have you _been_?” 

Willis tilted his bottle at Jason. “Took the kid to the circus.” He took a swig of beer. 

“You can’t _do_ that,” Catherine said, voice rising. “I came home, and I had no _idea_ where Jason was—” 

Willis’s eyes narrowed. “Kid’s left a literal note on the fridge.” 

“ _That doesn’t matter_ ,” Catherine snapped. “You c’n go disappear all you want, but you _can’t just take Jason off without telling me_ \--” 

They were yelling. They were always yelling. Jason wanted to cry. 

He tugged on Catherine’s sleeve. “Mom?” 

She glanced down at him, and stopped. Gave him one last squeeze before she let him go and nudged his shoulders. “Jason, go to your room.” 

“He’s my kid, too,” he heard Willis say as he slipped into his room. 

He didn’t want to hear. He was gonna cry. _He didn’t want to hear_. 

He sat down against the bed, pulling his knees up, clapping his hands over his ears and squeezing his eyes shut. 

_Thump_. So much _blood_. 

He whimpered and opened his eyes again, but he couldn’t bring himself to take his hands off his ears. 

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

_Screaming. Crying. Screaming_ \-- 

“SHUT UP!” 

He didn’t realize he’d jumped to his feet until he was sliding into the living room and seeing Willis’s hand, going up. 

He jumped between them, arms thrown out. “STOP!” 

Catherine grabbed at his shoulders. “Jason--” 

“Why?” Jason asked. He could feel tears in his eyes. “Why do you always hit Mama?” 

Catherine started to whirl him around behind her, but Willis grabbed Jason’s arm, squeezing so hard Jason cried out. 

“Oh, so you hate me too, you ungrateful brat?” Willis spit. “Bet ya wish I’da been the one fell from the sky, huh? Would that make y’all happy?” 

Jason burst into tears. 

Willis snorted, shoved Jason back into Catherine. “What the hell--” she started, and flinched as Willis threw the beer bottle. It shattered against the wall, and he stomped past her, throwing open the front door and slamming it shut behind him. 

Catherine sank to the ground, pulling Jason into her lap. “Shh, sweetie. It’s okay, baby, it’s okay...” 

Janet glanced back. The little boy strapped into the booster seat was quiet, watching out the window. 

“This may have been a bad idea,” she murmured. 

Jack glanced in the rearview mirror. “He’ll be okay.” 

Janet leaned back into her seat. “Do they know?” 

Jack nodded. “Why else do you think I picked the circus?” 

Janet just frowned and stared out the window. 

Dick blinked his eyes open. 

He was lying on the hard floor. Had he fallen off his bed? 

No. Not off his bed. They were performing, they fell off-- 

He jerked up. “ _Mami!”_

He blinked again, disoriented. This...was most definitely not the circus ring. 

He was in a big, circular room. Everything was white and gray and looked like stone, and there were old gas lamps set in the walls. It made him think of an old castle or something. 

He scooted backwards, and his head hit something hard. He turned around. 

It was a fountain, a huge one. About as big as Zitka, maybe. It was made of strange white stone and there was an owl at the top. 

A very big owl, with its wings spread out and water coming out of its mouth. 

And the water... 

The water was _pink_. 

He pulled himself up, gripping the edge of the fountain. 

As soon as he was standing straight, everything went blurry, and he had to hang on to the cold marble under his hands so he didn’t fall over before there was just one of everything again. 

“Ah, you’re awake.” 

Dick whirled around. He...knew that voice? How did he know that voice? 

The person in front of him was...well. Dick wasn’t sure it was a person. It—he?--was wearing all black that looked kinda like armor, and had gold gloves and a scabbard like Old Mr. Faruq’s fancy costume had, and. And he—it?--had no face. Just orange goggles Dick could see his own face in, and a fake beak in the middle. 

No eyes. No nose. No mouth. No face. Just black, black, black. 

Not a person. A _monster_. 

_Monsters aren’t real, Dickie._

Well, there was proof against _that_ standing right in front of him. 

Tati had always said Dickie was a brave boy. Mami said he was smart. 

His family told stories around a fire, often. Or just huddled up in blankets around a space heater on the floor of their trailer. 

Dickie knew how stories go. 

As soon as he’d processed the... _monster_ looking down at him. 

Dick turned and _ran._

“Ropes were frayed. No signs of foul play. It was ugly, but it was an accident.” 

“Hm.” 

“You don’t think so?” 

“Any news on the boy?” 

“Dickie Grayson? Nothing. No clue where he’s disappeared to. Running theory, he panicked and ran out, got lost in the city somewhere. Kid’s probably in shock.” 

“Mhm.” 

“But if this wasn’t an accident...?” 

“I have a theory.” 

“Well, if you have any information, let me know. If it was murder...Lord knows it’s bad enough for the kid to be lost in Gotham even if it was an accident.” 

Dick didn’t know how long he’d run. He was in a _maze_ , and all the twisty corridors looked _exactly the same_. 

He was reminded, for a wild moment, of the many mazes he and Johnny had explored over the years. Hedge mazes and corn mazes and mirror mazes and all sorts of other fair mazes. 

He was also reminded of the haunted houses they’d laughed themselves silly over. 

_Johnny._

_Don’t cry, don’t cry. Run now. Think later._

He had no idea where he was going, but he just wanted to get _as far away as_ possible from the monster. He couldn’t hear anyone following him, but he was scared to turn around and look. 

The hall he was in split into two, and he swerved right. 

He was in a huge room full of big, rectangle stones. He jumped, flipped over the first one and crawled between two more. 

He held his breath for a long time, and when he still heard nothing slowly lifted his head above the stone...box? 

The room he was in was _big,_ and the stone boxes—he was pretty sure they were boxes—lined every wall. There were a few lights set very high up on the walls. And only one doorway. 

But no sign of the monster. Thank God. 

He had to get out, somehow. Find someone, somewhere safe—but first he had to find out where he _was_. He vaguely remembered Johnny saying something about getting out of a maze by keeping one hand along the wall. 

But first he’d have to go through that door. 

The monster was out there, somewhere. And Dick was _so, so_ scared. 

_You’re a brave boy, Dickie. C’mon. Up._

He slowly started to rise to a crouch. He had one hand against the stone box, which is why he felt the carving. Frowning, he bent down to squint at it. It looked like a word, but it had been scratched over so many times he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to figure out what it was. 

No time to explore, even if he’d wanted to. 

He stood up, again. 

And found himself facing black. 

_Wha..._

He looked up. 

And straight at his own terrified reflection in two orange circles of glass. 

“...Graysons were pronounced dead on site...” 

Falling, falling. 

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. 

He wanted to wake up. 

_Thump. Thump. Thump._

He wanted the nightmare to be over. 

_Falling_ _falling_ _he was standing way up high now, and he could see them falling and he could see the_ blood _\--_

Someone was nudging his shoulder. 

“Wake up, Jay-jay, it’s just a nightmare, sweetheart.” 

He blinked his eyes open to see the TV screen, the words TRAGIC INCIDENT AT VISITING CIRCUS running across the bottom. 

He whimpered. 

He felt Mom flinch at his side, and the TV switched off. 

“’s okay, Jay-jay,” she whispered, pulling him closer, and Jason snuggled into her side. 

Mom-snuggles had gotten a bit rare recently. 

But he couldn’t help but think of the boy screaming as he hung high above the bodies on the ground. 

(Was there anyone taking care of him?) 

Dick screamed. 

“You were not supposed to wake,” the monster mused (It could talk?) as Dick scrambled backwards. 

It easily jumped over the stone box between them as Dick’s back hit stone. Thinking quickly, he vaulted himself up and backwards onto the box, cartwheeling out of reach as the monster reached for him. 

“There’s no need for this, boy,” the monster rumbled. 

_Hah. Right._ Dick leapt to another box, keeping his eyes on the monster. It stayed where it was, watching him. 

He had to get to the door. But the monster was in the way, and if they started moving, Dick couldn’t keep moving _away_. 

He jumped backwards again, and the monster, shaking its head, vaulted over the box between them. But once Dick felt stone under his right hand he flung himself sideways, hitting another box and rolling off to land on the floor and _sprinted_ for the door. 

Something sharp pricked his neck. 

“Believe me, child, this will make it easier for all of us.” 

Dick tried to scream. It was getting dark. 

He’d never realized, before, just how scary the color black could be. 

Tim was still screaming when he woke up. 

Someone stroked his hair back. “Shh. You’re okay, kiddo.” 

Tim opened his eyes, slowly. There was a—a girl? She didn’t look very old—smiling down at him. 

She had blond hair in a ponytail and kinda squinty brown eyes and a pointy chin and _Tim didn’t know her_. 

He scrambled backwards. “Where’s Mama?” he demanded. (In his head he could still see them falling. Falling, falling, and then— _thump—_ gone. 

_Mama. Daddy. NO!_

...no. It wasn’t his mama. Or his daddy. 

It was Dick’s mama and daddy. The kind boy who’d given him a hug and done a flip just for him. The nice man and woman who let them take a picture together. 

It wasn’t _his_ mama and daddy. Right? It wasn’t.) 

“She’s not here right now, buddy.” 

No. No, it _wasn’t_ Mom and Dad, no, no, they weren’t gone. 

_Falling, falling, falling. Tim was falling now and the ground got closer and closer and he screamed but he was still_ FALLING— 

There were tears in his eyes. “I want Mama.” 

“She’ll be back in a bit, Tim,” the girl says, but Tim hears her voice but not the words because he’s crying now and he knows he’s not a baby, and some part of his mind is pointing out that if Mama will be back she and Daddy can’t be _gone_ but they’re not here and. And. 

Tim is crying. He wants to see Mama. He wants to see Daddy. 

(Maybe if he’s loud enough they’ll hear him. _Come back_. 

That doesn’t make any sense but. Tim is _so scared_.) 

“Tim?” 

Tim is so surprised he jumps up when he hears Daddy’s voice. The girl gives him a phone. 

She looks like she was crying. Why was she crying? 

“Tim? You there?” 

There’s no video, and all there is on screen is the words _Jack Drake_ and a J in a circle, no picture even, but Tim still cradles it carefully in his hands near his face. 

“Daddy?” he hiccups. 

“Heya, bud. What’s going on?” 

Tim sniffles. “Where are you?” he asks. 

It’s in that second that he realizes. Mama and Daddy had to go again. And the girl was probably the new nanny. And Tim had just thrown a _big_ tantrum and he was going to be in so, so much trouble now. 

But. He wished they had stayed. For a little while. 

“We just had a meeting we had to get to, Timbo. Mom and I’ll be back in a few hours, okay?” 

They hadn’t left! They’d be back. A few hours felt like a long time but it was better than _months_ and _months_. 

“Okay.” 

“Good. Now be good for Carla, alright? No crying.” 

Mama and Daddy would be back. 

Tim just had to wait a few hours. 

He could do that. 

“Okay.” 

Dick hung from the trapeze, watching Mami fly towards him. 

He reached out his arms, ready for her to grab his wrists. But she let go of the bar and didn’t reach back for him. He met her eyes as she arced past him. 

She looked _terrified_. 

He didn’t see, but he heard the _thump_ as she fell. 

“ _Mami!”_

And then there was Tati. 

Falling. 

Aunt Karla screamed. 

Uncle Rick tried to catch her. 

_Thump._

_Thump._

_Thump._

Dick screamed. 

Suddenly there were fingers wrapped around his wrists. His own wrapped against strong arms instinctively as he looked down into Johnny’s face. 

“ _Why didn’t you catch me_?” Johnny whispered. 

Dick shook his head. His hands were slippery with sweat ( _why? He always chalked them before a routine—they weren’t supposed to get_ slippery _\--)_ and he could feel the tears slipping from his face. 

“I’m sorry. _I’m so sorry_.” 

Johnny’s hands were slipping. Dick squeezed as hard as he could, but his hands slipped up Johnny’s wrist and Johnny’s slipped down until they were just holding on by their fingertips. 

“ _Johnny_ ,” Dick said, desperate. Johnny was slipping and he didn’t know what to do. 

Johnny would know what to do. Right? Johnny was pretty much his big brother. He _always_ knew what to do. 

Johnny’s eyes were so sad. 

He opened his hands. 

“ _No!”_ Dick screamed, and he grabbed for Johnny but Johnny was falling falling falling-- 

_Thump_. 

The trapeze was gone. 

Dick was falling. 

Falling-- 

He screamed. For Mami. For Tati. For Aunty, for Uncle, for Johnny. 

No one answered. They wouldn’t. Not again. Never again. 

They were gone, all of them, and they were never going to come back. Ever. 

_Thump_. 

He jerked as he fell, and blinked as he felt something soft underneath him, and something warm and heavy on top. 

He blinked. 

He wasn’t in the ring. 

He also wasn’t at home. 

But he was in a bed. 

He didn’t know what was happening. 

They _fell_ , and then he got kidnapped, and then there was the monster-- 

Everything was moving too fast and Dick just wanted it all to _stop_. 

“Welcome home, Grayson,” a voice rumbled. 

Dick _jumped_ , ready to run-- 

There was a wall at the head of the bed and one behind him. And at the other side of the bed stood a man. 

Yellow eyes, pale skin, black armor-suit with knives. 

_Monster_ , a voice whispered in his mind. 

He couldn’t run. So instead he froze, crouched on top of the bed, and blinked as a slow smile spread over the man’s face. 

A _wrong_ smile. 

“Welcome to the Court.” 

“In a tragic end to the Grayson story, a body found in Gotham Harbor was identified as Dickie Grayson—the youngest member of the acrobatic family, missing since the day of the accident. With the GCPD’s investigation close to closed, Haly’s Circus is leaving Gotham...” 

“Do turn it off, Jack, this is all getting rather morbid.” 

“I’d prefer to think of it as a mark on the agenda.” 

_Click_. 

NAME: DOE, JOHN 

Patient suffered several fractures due to fall. Most critical fractures in left arm and hip; multiple others in right arm, left and right legs, collarbone, and back. 

Patient also suffered severe head trauma due to fall and is currently in coma. Unclear when, or if, patient will regain consciousness. 

CONTACT INFORMATION: Bruce Wayne 

Wayne Manor, 53 Hill Drive, Gotham City, NJ 08211 

609-347-5157 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...yup.  
> This was, honestly, where I'd been going from the very beginning. But--okay, so in my "usual" universe where I've, inevitably, had to pick-and-choose canon to make anything make sense, there IS no Court of Owls. But I think they make for a fun AU to play around with. So. Before we keep going, I want to make a few things clear:  
> 1\. I'm not calling this a Talon AU. It's a Court of Owls AU. ;P  
> 2\. Dick's not turning into a zombie cause that's not how this works. If you're eyeing the yellow-eyed guy right now, I promise it'll make sense in like, the next chapter lol.  
> I think that's it?

**Author's Note:**

> I've got the whole story outlined, and a couple of chapters written, but it's mad long. Will probably split into a series with three or four works for the sake of my sanity because I'm a bit of an organization freak sometimes. As of right now, updates once a week, I hope?


End file.
